I heard this expression during the broadcast of a baseball game during which a team was described to have “manufactured a run out of thin air.” Apparently that is an unusual use of the expression, which has more commonly been used to describe magic tricks that appear to make things appear or disappear without a trace or explanation. The FreeDictionary.com has the best explanation for the use by the baseball announcer, saying it means “…out of nowhere, out of nothing…” It gives the example of “You just made that excuse up out of thin air.” According to the Phrase Finder Shakespeare started the overall use of the expression in 1604 by having a character describe how something would “…vanish into air…”

Before this phrase was a TV series, it was a political demand for stricter criminal penalties, especially for violent crimes. Since the 1960s it has been a reoccurring theme in American politics whether crimes rates were rising or falling. Wikipedia says the phrase was introduced by Barry Goldwater in his run for president in 1964.

But dictionary.com says the concept was stated by Aristotle and that the phrase has been used since the late 1500s – though they offer no citation. I wouldn’t be at all surprised – legal terms seem to get fossilized into out language.

I was delighted when Star Trek informed me that French workers once threw their wooden shows, called sabos, into new machinery to stop mechanization – hence the word sabotage.

But is the tale a language myth?

Grammarphobia says the word “didn’t originate in the practice of workers tossing their sabots into machinery to botch up the works. In fact, there’s no evidence that any sabots were ever tossed into any machinery.” The word first appeared in an anarchist report sent to the 1897 congress of the Confédération Générale du Travail in Toulouse. The report advocated work slowdowns and used the word because “it has long been the custom to liken the slow and clumsy worker to one wearing wooden shoes, called ‘sabots.’ ”

Word Detective agrees.

Star Trek! How could you let me down?

The expression originated in the 17^th Century, or perhaps earlier, based on the thought that a human hair was so thin that it would be a waste of time to try to split it. Some developed the art of winning arguments based on small differences or trivial points to divert from the main argument, which is how the expression is used today.

I liked the analysis from Disappearing Idioms. It described a “wet blanket as “…a person, although sometimes it can be a thing…that be counted on to spoil the fun or dampen the enjoyment of others.” What really attracted me was the “Three Famous Wet Blankets.” The first was the Eeyore donkey from Winnie-the-Pooh, Sad Sack from Yank Magazine, and my favorite, Joe Btfsplk of Lil’ Abner who “…travelled with his own black cloud overhead.” The explanation of the origin is that it refers to 1660 references to keeping a thoroughly wetted blanket handy to smother a flare-up in confined spaces.

Dictionary.com explains the expression means to receive the largest part of a share and especially a disproportionate portion. It has its origin in Aesop fables in which the lion claimed most if not all the spoils of a hunt with other animals needing to defer to the powerful lion.